ADL Launches Counter Offensive to 'Neo-Nazi' CD Distribution

(CNSNews.com) - The Anti-Defamation League Monday launched an offensive against the planned distribution of thousands of sampler CDs in schools in the coming weeks by a music company with alleged links to "neo-Nazi and skinhead groups." The ADL claimed the company is trying to attract young people to the music and ideology of "neo-Nazi bands."

School districts across the country have been advised to be on the alert for the distribution effort, dubbed "Operation Schoolyard USA" by its organizers, Panzerfaust Records, which is based in Newport, Minn. The songs featured on the CDs are recorded by various "white power" bands, whose music is filled with "racist and anti-Semitic themes," the ADL claimed.

"Once again, the hate groups are finding ways to repackage their old-fashioned hatred and anti-Semitism into new, more deceptively attractive forms that can appeal to a younger audience," Abraham H. Foxman, ADL's national director, stated in a release.

The CDs are targeted at middle and high school children ages 13 to 19, according to Panzerfaust.

"Instead of handing out leaflets on street corners, they are creating video games and CDs and Web sites whose aim is to attract children by at first concealing their real agenda and message," according to Foxman.

In addition to notifying schools of Panzerfaust's plans, the ADL published visuals and information on "hate music" as well as an "Educator Alert" to assist parents, school officials and caregivers to better identify the signs and symbols commonly associated with "hate music."

"Panzerfaust has intentionally designed its CDs to lure unsuspecting teens with a free giveaway that has the appearance of being just another free compilation of cutting edge music," stated Foxman. "In reality it is a thinly veiled attempt to attract kids to hateful, racist music and white power bands."

"Panzerfaust hopes to use the hard-driving music to recruit youth to its racist and anti-Semitic ideology, and plans to make the CD readily available on its Web site for just 15 cents, so that white supremacist groups can easily purchase large quantities to hand out to kids," the ADL added in a bulletin sent to national school officials.

"In hopes of disguising the content of the CD, Panzerfaust points out that it has been designed 'to be ... inconspicuous and not overtly racial ... so that it will be able to fly below the radar screen of teachers and other people....'" the ADL stated.

Panzerfaust is largely run by former members of the "anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi" National Alliance, according to the ADL, and now competes with the Alliance's own "hate music company," Resistance Records, once the most successful of such businesses in the country.

The upcoming CD distribution was modeled after a project that was launched by "neo-Nazis" in Germany, dubbed "Project Schoolyard," but was stopped earlier this year after German officials learned of the plan and confiscated the CDs, the ADL stated.

The dissemination of "racist and anti-Semitic" materials is illegal in Germany, but is protected by the First Amendment in the U.S., the ADL noted.

Panzerfaust Records' website website boasts that the company "specializes in the production and distribution of radical pro-White rock music."

The company's name is borrowed from "a portable, hand-held anti-tank weapon which was used against enemy armor encroaching on the Fatherland," during World War II, the website states. Translated into English, Panzerfaust means "armored fist," and "was chosen for the record label's name because the spirit of the weapon and those who employed it are forever embodied in our racial psyche."

Panzerfaust Records' "experienced staff" also claims to be "committed to doing its best in providing the audio ordnance that's needed by our comrades on the front lines of today's racial Struggle."